Archive for the 'Just saying' Category

Well, not quite… After our Iceland vacation it became clear that the Fuji Finepix and I had to part ways. I’m still annoyed to no end that I opted not to take the DSLR – I should have paid for the additional weight. A lot (and I mean a lot) of the photos came out just that tiny bit out of focus. I have considered a new bridge camera since this Spring, so it was time. I opted for the Nikon Coolpix B700.

The Dearest is horrified – he’s a Canon guy.

I’m still learning the handling – the new camera has 2 toggles for zooming, one on the body (where the trigger is) and one one the lens part (where I have my thumb when taking photos), this has led to some involuntary zoom action…

Hopefully by now I will not only have left the country, but am well on my way to leave the continent as well – for the second time in my life.

Since I’m only taking a new tablet instead of my trusted laptop, I’m not yet used to processing photos on it. I’m getting on in years and find I have some problems with the smaller screen. So I decided I won’t be blogging twice daily as usual. I’m not saying I’m not blogging at all, I’m saying I don’t know. You might want to come back occasionally.

This vacation is literally a childhood dream come true – just like my daddy more than 50 years ago I’m going to Iceland! Yay!

A note for my non-German-speaking readers: the title of the guide book is not a piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Island is the German name for Iceland.

If you’ve been following my blog for some time you might have seen I post photos of tall ships under the title Für Papa (For Daddy). That’s because he was a radar technician in the German Navy and did a tour on the Gorch Fock II. He rarely used to talk about that time, maybe because we were too young, but I remember him talking about Iceland. And I remember thinking I want to go there, too.

And that’s what I’m doing right now. I look forward to lots of birds, maybe some whales, bright nights, awe-inspiring landscapes and the best of all – standing where geology happens in way we can actually experience. Fire and ice, volcanoes and glaciers, the forces that form the face of the earth. Btw, did you know multiple earthquakes happen in Iceland every day?

As always I worked the late shift on Christmas Eve, which is when we exchange presents in Germany. The tree in the picture (and the fake gifts) is part of our Christmas decoration on the ward.

So… that’s another year of APAWs done. I’m not very consistent when it comes to updating, but I always managed to upoad my weekly photo on Sunday. Since next year I’ll be kind of changing jobs (it’s complicated) and the new one will probably include more nightshifts, I doubt I’ll be updating more regularly. Still, the APAW series will go into its fifth year and I’ll give my best to keep up with it. Again with a view from (roughly) around the farm. The 2016 – Here I stand was okay for this year, but I’m looking forward to see the seasons change again in my photos.

I’ve become a bit tired of taking photos in my every day life and lately I’ve been wondering about the possible reasons for that. It seems that in my mind I’ve grown bored with the “ordinary” stuff around the farm and only take the camera out for “special” occasions like our visit to Zollverein.

In my online search to find other, more creative ways of memory keeping I got lost in a maze of links and stumbled over the concept of mindfulness, which focusses on experiencing the present, of “living in the moment”. And while I don’t think I’ll become a regular practitioner, I do think that it might help me find a way back to enjoying photography by looking for the “special” in the “ordinary”. So I’m going to do an “Every Day in May” Challenge.
And to limit myself (apart from APAW-Sundays) I’m going to use my macro lens. Taking macros is something I used to enjoy in my toy photography, something I also do very rarely nowadays. So without further ado – here’s the first challenge pic:

We brew coffee by hand. Always have, always will. I love the smell of percolating coffee.